University of Michigan Medical School unethical on managing their waitlist?

[Observer1111]

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The University of Michigan Medical School places students on their waitlist, into a stratification of upper, middle, and lower tiers. For this year’s cycle (2012-2013), 51 OOS students and 29 in-state students have been placed in the upper tier.UM does communicate to the wait-listed students, the past history if any students were taken off the waitlist. For the last three years, no student has been taken off the waitlist.Typically, UM has 170 matriculating students, usually evenly split between IS and OOS.

A recent tweet this week from the UM Admissions Director says UM is getting a “record high” of students confirming their attendance. Of course, students have until May 15th to commit to one medical school.

However, comments have appeared on SDN, advising students having an UM acceptance, to not ask for a deferral too soon, because UM purposely over-admits, then offers a significant financial incentive, if a matriculating student, will delay their attendance until the following year. The “financial incentive” can be as much as $30K/yr. (I have been told this by a person).

The unethical part of this is the money. This cannot be considered financial aid or a merit scholarship. Where does this money come from, was it given by a donor for this purpose? This is a public school; do they have the right to use the money in this fashion?
If UM does not accept anyone off their waitlist this year, this means four years in a row this has happened, and indicates that they purposely over-subscribe.

I can understand if this over admitting occasionally happens, but to have this happen four years in a row…is like flipping a coin 4 times, and coming up heads all four times (a 6.25% probability).

The “financial incentive” is also unethical, because if, let’s say, 10 students/yr. get this incentive, then 10 x $30,000= $300,000, then for 4 years …this is costing UM $1.2 million. Instead, why not lower the tuition by $1760/yr. among all the students?

With the issue of medical school debt…every little bit of wiser use of money helps.

Why cannot UM manage their admission numbers , by more purposely under-admitting, then use the wait list, as it is intended? It just seems like a tremendous waste of money and really unethical, that they are not “transparent” on how they manage their class size.

 

[Ismet]

There's nothing unethical about it, and actually very few medical schools are as transparent as UM is about their application and admissions process. I was lucky enough to interview there last year (and unfortunately was put on the un-moving waitlist) but they were the most open about the process out of all the schools I applied to.

Every school has their own "algorithm" to determine how many people to accept/waitlist/reject in order to end up at their class size by orientation. Actually many schools "over-admit" because they know that not everyone accepted will decide to matriculate, but sometimes that algorithm fails. The same thing happened last year to Penn State's med school...more people decided to matriculate than expected and they offered half-tuition scholarships to people who deferred a year.

Yeah maybe it's time that UM rethinks their acceptance algorithm, but unethical it is not.

 

[pachewisc]

Unsure about how much of that is fact versus speculation, but a couple things to note.

1. U of M is not strictly a public university. They are a combination of public and private which allows them additional benefits and opportunities that most public schools cannot do (like their low IS acceptance rate)

2. Over accepting students is not analogous to flipping a coin. It's more of a function of them not learning from their mistakes.

3. Offering money to students who defer is not unethical. It's essentially required for a school that significantly over accepts.

4. If they want to over accept students in order to ensure that they don't let any of the best applicants slip past their grasp, then that's their decision. If it results in too many matriculants, then that's their issue to deal with. I highly doubt they enjoy handing out massive scholarships every year for students to defer because they intentionally place themselves in that situation. Seems unlikely that they can afford to shoot themselves in the foot like that year after year.

 

[GopherMD]

I fail to see anything unethical about this. Most schools over accept and some of them do run into this kind of problem.

 

[chemsmith]

They had the gall to put me on the 'lower tier' of the waitlist. Jerks! They will rue the day!

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

tl;dr: OP is upset he got waitlisted

 

[sinombre]

At least they inform you of your rank... plenty of schools don't even do that.

As was already stated, University of Michigan is actually one of the most transparent schools in the US.

 

[elevenses]

As was already stated, University of Michigan is actually one of the most transparent schools in the US.

I can't help but imagine that the school is literally transparent. HOW DOES ANYONE LEARN IN THERE?

 

[sinombre]

I can't help but imagine that the school is literally transparent. HOW DOES ANYONE LEARN IN THERE?

Haha... all of my posts are literally 100% literal.

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

Do schools like this grant all deferral requests?

 

[red doctober]

At least they inform you of your rank... plenty of schools don't even do that.

As was already stated, University of Michigan is actually one of the most transparent schools in the US.

That speech at the end of the interview day by the director of admissions, my goodness...

 

[Ismet]

That speech at the end of the interview day by the director of admissions, my goodness...

+1. I think they put something in the food or water at interview day...I left in absolute LOVE with that place, and so has everyone else I talked to about it. I mean, it's a great school, but I never hear people gushing as much about Hopkins or Penn or WashU as much as people gush about UM...

 

[gettheleadout]

+1. I think they put something in the food or water at interview day...I left in absolute LOVE with that place, and so has everyone else I talked to about it. I mean, it's a great school, but I never hear people gushing as much about Hopkins or Penn or WashU as much as people gush about UM...

This, however, would raise a concern about their ethics.

 

[red doctober]

+1. I think they put something in the food or water at interview day...I left in absolute LOVE with that place, and so has everyone else I talked to about it. I mean, it's a great school, but I never hear people gushing as much about Hopkins or Penn or WashU as much as people gush about UM...

I was an MD/PhD applicant, so the way interviews at UM worked for us was that we had the MSTP interviews one day then the MD-only interviews with everyone else the next, which was really just a formality and had practically no impact on the MSTP decision. I can only imagine that the speech by director at the end as causing both relief and anxiety in the MD applicants though.

 

[Geebeejay]

Not fair? maybe. Unethical? Absolutely not.

I wish either of the schools I got accepted at did this. I would defer how ever long they ask me for half tuition....

 

[gettheleadout]

Not fair? maybe. Unethical? Absolutely not.

I wish either of the schools I got accepted at did this. I would defer how ever long they ask me for half tuition....

...forever 😱

 

[MusicJunkie]

That speech at the end of the interview day by the director of admissions, my goodness...

Speech?

 

[red doctober]

Speech?

Well, more like a presentation. It was just a very transparent overview of how admissions works there, and he was brutally honest when it came to decisions for admission as well as for scholarships. It's funny because every rejection letter I got from other schools had a "It's not you, it's us (not having enough spots)," feel whereas he was just like, "If you don't get in, it's you not us. There was something about you that we didn't like." That got some 😱😱 reactions in the room.

 

[MusicJunkie]

Well, more like a presentation. It was just a very transparent overview of how admissions works there, and he was brutally honest when it came to decisions for admission as well as for scholarships. It's funny because every rejection letter I got from other schools had a "It's not you, it's us (not having enough spots)," feel whereas he was just like, "If you don't get in, it's you not us. There was something about you that we didn't like." That got some 😱😱 reactions in the room.

Hahaha, man, talk about brutal honesty! I can respect that though.

UA Phoenix has a very transparent admissions process as well - at the end of the day, we got a similar speech with the exact date we'd be hearing back regarding our decision, around what time, etc. Really took out all the guess work.

 

[thesauce]

The University of Michigan Medical School places students on their waitlist, into a stratification of upper, middle, and lower tiers. For this year’s cycle (2012-2013), 51 OOS students and 29 in-state students have been placed in the upper tier.UM does communicate to the wait-listed students, the past history if any students were taken off the waitlist. For the last three years, no student has been taken off the waitlist.Typically, UM has 170 matriculating students, usually evenly split between IS and OOS....

Didn't get in, huh?

The financial incentive is most likely money from private donations to the alumni organization which they can use as they see fit. And they have chosen to use it to retain stellar candidates - not a bad use, IMO. If it was public funds, you MIGHT have a point, but even then it doesn't seem like a bad use of money.

 

[Barney Stinson]

I didn't apply to UM, but I can understand part of OP's frustration. I think it's kind of silly to stratify a waitlist when there is no intention of ever using it, which sounds like the case given that this has happened so many years in a row. I appreciate UM's transparency through the process and think a lot of other schools could stand to learn from them in that regard, but I don't understand deliberately overaccepting and then paying students to defer. I wonder if it has something to do with their yield numbers.

That being said, they've built an admissions budget and get to use that however they'd like. I think it's a really inefficient use of money myself, but that's not my call.

 

[yehhhboiii]

They know that a certain percentage of the students that they accept will choose to go elsewhere . They want the best students that they can get. It sucks if you get put on the waitlist but they have plenty of great applicants.

 

[mvenus929]

Do schools like this grant all deferral requests?

When my school had too many students after May 15th a few years ago, they sent us an e-mail initially telling us that they'd relax the reasons for deferral. When that didn't get sufficient response, they asked people who wanted to do an MPH to do it first year instead of after third. When they still needed fewer people, they started offering scholarships.

 

[deleted393595]

The University of Michigan Medical School places students on their waitlist, into a stratification of upper, middle, and lower tiers. For this year’s cycle (2012-2013), 51 OOS students and 29 in-state students have been placed in the upper tier.UM does communicate to the wait-listed students, the past history if any students were taken off the waitlist. For the last three years, no student has been taken off the waitlist.Typically, UM has 170 matriculating students, usually evenly split between IS and OOS.

A recent tweet this week from the UM Admissions Director says UM is getting a “record high” of students confirming their attendance. Of course, students have until May 15th to commit to one medical school.

However, comments have appeared on SDN, advising students having an UM acceptance, to not ask for a deferral too soon, because UM purposely over-admits, then offers a significant financial incentive, if a matriculating student, will delay their attendance until the following year. The “financial incentive” can be as much as $30K/yr. (I have been told this by a person).

The unethical part of this is the money. This cannot be considered financial aid or a merit scholarship. Where does this money come from, was it given by a donor for this purpose? This is a public school; do they have the right to use the money in this fashion?
If UM does not accept anyone off their waitlist this year, this means four years in a row this has happened, and indicates that they purposely over-subscribe.

I can understand if this over admitting occasionally happens, but to have this happen four years in a row…is like flipping a coin 4 times, and coming up heads all four times (a 6.25% probability).

The “financial incentive” is also unethical, because if, let’s say, 10 students/yr. get this incentive, then 10 x $30,000= $300,000, then for 4 years …this is costing UM $1.2 million. Instead, why not lower the tuition by $1760/yr. among all the students?

With the issue of medical school debt…every little bit of wiser use of money helps.

Why cannot UM manage their admission numbers , by more purposely under-admitting, then use the wait list, as it is intended? It just seems like a tremendous waste of money and really unethical, that they are not “transparent” on how they manage their class size.

Butthurtness >9000

 

[somethingdeep]

The University of Michigan Medical School places students on their waitlist, into a stratification of upper, middle, and lower tiers. For this year’s cycle (2012-2013), 51 OOS students and 29 in-state students have been placed in the upper tier.UM does communicate to the wait-listed students, the past history if any students were taken off the waitlist. For the last three years, no student has been taken off the waitlist.Typically, UM has 170 matriculating students, usually evenly split between IS and OOS.

A recent tweet this week from the UM Admissions Director says UM is getting a “record high” of students confirming their attendance. Of course, students have until May 15th to commit to one medical school.

However, comments have appeared on SDN, advising students having an UM acceptance, to not ask for a deferral too soon, because UM purposely over-admits, then offers a significant financial incentive, if a matriculating student, will delay their attendance until the following year. The “financial incentive” can be as much as $30K/yr. (I have been told this by a person).

The unethical part of this is the money. This cannot be considered financial aid or a merit scholarship. Where does this money come from, was it given by a donor for this purpose? This is a public school; do they have the right to use the money in this fashion?
If UM does not accept anyone off their waitlist this year, this means four years in a row this has happened, and indicates that they purposely over-subscribe.

I can understand if this over admitting occasionally happens, but to have this happen four years in a row…is like flipping a coin 4 times, and coming up heads all four times (a 6.25% probability).

The “financial incentive” is also unethical, because if, let’s say, 10 students/yr. get this incentive, then 10 x $30,000= $300,000, then for 4 years …this is costing UM $1.2 million. Instead, why not lower the tuition by $1760/yr. among all the students?

With the issue of medical school debt…every little bit of wiser use of money helps.

Why cannot UM manage their admission numbers , by more purposely under-admitting, then use the wait list, as it is intended? It just seems like a tremendous waste of money and really unethical, that they are not “transparent” on how they manage their class size.

Not every situation that has two outcomes has a 50/50 chance of each outcome 🙂

Michigan definitely has a different way of dealing with their waitlist, but I don't think there's anything unethical/bad about it. I personally think they're doing a huge favor to applicants by giving them an almost definite idea of whether they've gotten in (since the waitlist at UM is essentially a rejection). To me, that's far preferable to being placed on a waitlist at a school that might ultimately accept 5 or 10% of waitlisted students, and having to wait and wait and wait until May or even later to find out if you get in. The fact that they accomplish that by giving students a monetary incentive to defer admission doesn't seem so terrible to me.

 

[sinombre]

Not every situation that has two outcomes has a 50/50 chance of each outcome 🙂

Michigan definitely has a different way of dealing with their waitlist, but I don't think there's anything unethical/bad about it. I personally think they're doing a huge favor to applicants by giving them an almost definite idea of whether they've gotten in (since the waitlist at UM is essentially a rejection). To me, that's far preferable to being placed on a waitlist at a school that might ultimately accept 5 or 10% of waitlisted students, and having to wait and wait and wait until May or even later to find out if you get in. The fact that they accomplish that by giving students a monetary incentive to defer admission doesn't seem so terrible to me.

Or July 31...

😡

 

[somethingdeep]

Or July 31...

😡

Yeah, it just seems disrespectful and unnecessary for applicants to have to wait that long to know if they got into their dream school. Props to Michigan for doing it a different way.

 

[Observer1111]

bump...the concern here is that Michigan uses money for yield protection, the money is not allocated due to finanical need nor merit. If Michigan would not "game" their wailist system for yield protection...they could allocate more financial aid to partially alleviate the tremendous debt future med students will be taking on.

It is not "transparent" when they do not tell applicants that the incoming class size has been reduced, due to Michigan purposely overadmitting.

Yale uses a waitlist...why not Michigan?

 

[LizzyM]

bump...the concern here is that Michigan uses money for yield protection, the money is not allocated due to finanical need nor merit. If Michigan would not "game" their wailist system for yield protection...they could allocate more financial aid to partially alleviate the tremendous debt future med students will be taking on.

It is not "transparent" when they do not tell applicants that the incoming class size has been reduced, due to Michigan purposely overadmitting.

Yale uses a waitlist...why not Michigan?

This is the opposite of yield protection....

If I'm UMich, I have 170 seats. If I wanted to protect my yield, I'd make 170 offers by March 15th and waitlist the other 525 people interviewed (with perhaps some rejections for weird/creepy behavior on interview day). Then I'd pull from the waitlist to fill whatever number of empty seats I have on May 15th and perhaps choose people who have sent letters of interest and pretty much sat up and begged to be sure I choose people who will matriculate.
That assures that I've made the fewest offers for the number of seats I have.

Obviously, if UMich is oversubscribed, it is making more than 170 offers at the start and its yield is automatically lower than it would be if it was serious about protecting its yield.

Also, the money offered in exchange for deferring is usually a one-time thing rather than 4 payments over 4 years. Really, it is not much different than being bumped on a flight that is over-booked. Do you know of airlines that over-book and have people waiting around on "stand-by"?

If you can't deal with being on a waitlist, withdraw your application. buh-bye

 

[Observer1111]

LizzyM…whoa!... drink a cup of coffee and think before you type!

The analogy to the airlines overbooking flights, then offering incentives to passengers to take a different flight, is not the same on UM Medical School purposely over-admitting, then offering financial incentive to defer for a year.

Let me explain. If an airline only sold tickets for the exact passenger need…then yes, they probably would come up short on flights…and then cannot immediately fill these slots…thus not maximizing revenue by not having a full aircraft.

UM Medical School purposely over-admits…and always can fill slots, unlike what an airline can do …so why have they purposely over-admitted for the last 4 years? Their admission director has said in on line chat's "he hates going to the waitlist"…why? I suspect this is more about protecting MCAT score/GPA's average…but the financial consequences of this are severe…UM interviewed invited 574 this year, and next year they tweeted it will be 600. So, with a typical admissions acceptance post interview of 50%...so maybe 13 students they had to defer and offer financial incentives for deferral?

13 x $20,000= $260,000 of money that could be put to much better use…such as lowering tuition, more scholarships, and increased financial aid. But UM's average MCAT dropped from 35.13 to 34.2 in 2012…so was this money wisely spent?

The unethical issue here is:

-UM Medical School Admissions says they are "transparent"…when they send out the waitlist notice showing they had not admitted anyone in the last 4 years…they need to be truly "transparent" by including a column showing how the class is over-subscribed in the last 4 years

- UM is a public institution….they need to be wiser how they spend resources

-the "medical school/health care complex" (taking a quote from Eisenhower's warning on the power of the military/ industrial complex's power)…needs a wake- up call on cost containment, and elite medical schools, like UM, need to show leadership and sacrifice in reducing costs of medical school education . I mean, UM is losing about $40MM in NIH funding next year…but yet have this wasteful wait list scheme …if UM want to keep claiming they are the "Leaders and the Best"…then walk the talk.

 

[Ismet]

 

[LizzyM]

$260,000 divided among 170 students is $1,529... that doesn't go very far when the cost of attendance ranges from $55-86K.

At least UMich tells you that your chances of getting off the waitlist are slim to none. Accept it and move on. If UMich had accepted exactly 170 and put the rest of those it admitted this year on a "preferred waitlist" and left the rest of the interviewed applicants on its tiered waitlist, how would things have changed for those on the tiered waitlist? It would still fill (but not overfill) its class from the people who were admitted outright or who were put on the preferred waitlist and the only people who would miss out would be those who would end up languishing on the preferred waitlist rather than the status quo which is that they are essentially the earliest admissions to the next class.

If you are on the waitlist, you are not going to better off if UMich changes its policy. If you are admitted and matriculate, your share of the pot that would come to you if it hadn't over-enrolled is a drop in the bucket compared to your 4 year cost of attendance and if you are one of the people who takes the opportunity to enjoy a year off (at what ends up being a loss when you consider the delay in physician income these students will experience), you did it voluntarily so what's the beef?

 

[Iso4ane]

UMich isn't the only school that has this problem.

OSU had this problem as well ~2years ago. Over admitted, and had offered to student the deferral option.

I like to believe that it is common practice to over admit based on previous data on how many people accept offers (much like the airline analogy earlier), and there will be time that the problem you are going through happen.

I hope these administrations realize that there are more and more applicants every year, so that they should probably lower the buffer and increase the waitlist.

 

[somethingdeep]

UMich isn't the only school that has this problem.

OSU had this problem as well ~2years ago. Over admitted, and had offered to student the deferral option.

I like to believe that it is common practice to over admit based on previous data on how many people accept offers (much like the airline analogy earlier), and there will be time that the problem you are going through happen.

I hope these administrations realize that there are more and more applicants every year, so that they should probably lower the buffer and increase the waitlist.

It isn't a "problem" for U of M. This is the way they choose to fill their class, and it works for them. It sounded like it was inadvertent when OSU did this two years ago, since it sounds like it just happened once. But this is just the strategy U of M uses every year.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

Butthurtness >9000

This. Jesus.

 

[tiedyeddog]

There is absolutely nothing unethical about this. If you don't like it then don't go to U of Michigan....